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NEW YORK (AP) - CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves shot back at former CBS news anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday, saying his characterization of the network "tarting" up its newscast with anchor Katie Couric was "sexist." Rather, speaking by phone on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Joe Scarborough Monday, said CBS had made the mistake of taking the evening news broadcast and "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and playing up topics such as celebrities over war coverage. The comments subsequently appeared in blogs and in a story published Tuesday in the New York Daily News and the New...

Excerpt: For instance, the new Jacked and Spanish formats have shown success in many major markets and this week’s return of Opie and Anthony is a good example of the flexibility of the radio business. We made a quick mid course change and brought in proven talent who we believe should greatly improve the revenue and profit performance of our nation’s largest east coast markets. These guys were number 1 in their day part when they were last on our air in 2002, and we look forward to the new excitement they will bring to the morning beginning with their...

Media buyers see new CBS anchor sinking By Diego Vasquez Sep 12, 2006 Katie Couric's debut as network television's first lone woman anchor is important for a lot of reasons beyond Couric herself, and not the least is what success or failure will mean for network news. A rise to No. 1 for the longtime No. 3 "CBS Evening News" broadcast would surely bring about major changes at NBC and ABC. But a week after Couric's debut, that's probably not going to happen. On her first night, Couric shot up to No. 1 in the ratings, and while she finished...

CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said on Wednesday he was sorry about the bitter departure of newsman Dan Rather, who left the broadcaster after protracted talks to renew his contract fell apart. ..media watchers said Rather appeared to have been slowly pushed off the air... "I'm sorry it ended the way it did," Moonves told executives at a PricewaterhouseCoopers media event. "There was no bigger role for him to play anymore," ...

Stern Takes His Case to Hannity & Colmes Faced with legal action from CBS Radio, Howard Stern is taking his case to the court of public opinion, beginning with an exclusive interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes show (9-10 p.m. ET) Tuesday and Wednesday, March 7-8. It's Stern's first TV interview since CBS filed suit against Stern last week. Stern is expected to speak with Hannity about a number of issues, including the multi-million-dollar lawsuit against him and his experiences since he left terrestrial radio to join Sirius Satellite Radio. Among the allegations...

NEW YORK - CBS on Wednesday appointed its top sports executive, Sean McManus, to replace Andrew Heyward as head of a news division still searching for Dan Rather's replacement and seeking to rebound from last year's discredited report on President Bush's military service. McManus, 50, follows in the path of the late Roone Arledge at ABC as an executive who took over a network news division while still running sports. Heyward will leave two months shy of his 10th anniversary running the legendary news division, a distant third in the ratings in both the morning and evening yet still the...

A year after it changed executive producers for the first time in its 37-year history, the CBS news magazine "60 Minutes" is in the midst of yet another transition. After the chairman of CBS, Leslie Moonves, announced last month that he was canceling the Wednesday spinoff of the Sunday program because of low ratings, the news division has been struggling to relocate about 75 producers, editors, assistants and others who worked on the weekday broadcast; at least 40 of them are expected to lose their jobs, with the remainder dispersed to other programs, including the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes,"...

NEW YORK - CBS said Wednesday it is cancelling the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," insisting the decision was made because of poor ratings and not last fall's ill-fated story about President Bush's military service Dan Rather, the newsmagazine's lead correspondent, will contribute stories to the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes," said CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves. "This was a ratings call, not a content call," Moonves said Wednesday. The newsmagazine spinoff was where Rather reported last September that Bush skirted some duty while in the Texas Air National Guard and a commander felt pressure to sugarcoat an evaluation of him....

<p>If CBS CEO Leslie Moonves had hoped the investigation by an independent panel into the network's botched "60 Minutes Wednesday" feature regarding President Bush's National Guard duty would be enough to put the controversy behind the media giant, recent days have brought him unsettling developments. Five weeks after the panel issued its 224-page report; those it singled out for wrongdoing are fighting back -- taking issue with the investigation as well as the Viacom-owned network. The new rumblings suggest that the sour taste of CBS's National Guard story may linger for months to come. And it will almost certainly remain beyond the network's planned farewell next month for longtime anchor Dan Rather, who was the on-camera reporter for the story.</p>

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER will report tomorrow: 'Former 60 Minutes Wednesday executive editor Josh Howard has told colleagues that before he resigns, the 23-year CBS News veteran will demand that the network retract remarks by CBS president Leslie Moonves, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name'... In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Moonves put under oath to talk about his own roles in the network's stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush's National Guard service. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he...

By George, he's got it! Yes, Leslie Moonves has hit upon the formula for reversing all that Henry Higgins taught Eliza Doolittle about the king's English. And all some newscasters once held sacred. And not just pronunciation, either; the whole kit & kaboodle -- spelling, usage, construction. You name it, and if your name for it is a bit risqué, what the heck, that's how people friggin' talk nowadays. Moonves, president of CBS for those just back from Mars, is taking the occasion of the news division's embarrassment over the 60 Minutes airing of memos of dubious authorship assailing President...

In its search to replace Dan Rather and regain its stature, CBS might hire several anchors for different cities — but experts think Katie Couric won't be among them. CBS Chief Les Moonves wouldn't comment on Couric, but suggested yesterday he can grow his own stars — at much lower salaries — and create a trendy new format for young TV viewers in the Internet age. Moonves, who discussed his anchor problem publicly for the first time, said young viewers are turned off by Rather's style of "Moses from-the-mountaintop" proclamations. [snip] He said CBS wants to reshape its news...

NEW YORK - CBS hoped that the release of an independent probe of its ill-fated story on President Bush (news - web sites)'s military service, painful as it was, would at least lift the cloud over its news division. If only it were that simple. The report, and the network's response to it, left some questions unresolved: _ How does CBS News President Andrew Heyward effectively lead when there's widespread surprise — including, undoubtedly, in his own shop — at how he kept his job when four others were fired for their roles in the news organization's worst embarrassment in...

I am terribly disappointed in the conclusions of the report and its effects on the four of us who will no longer work at CBS News.... I am shocked by the vitriolic scape-goating in Les Moonves’s statement. I am very concerned that his actions are motivated by corporate and political considerations -- ratings rather than journalism. Mr. Moonves’s response to the review panel’s report and the panel’s assessment of the evidence it developed in its investigation combine not only to condemn me, but to put all investigative reporting in the CBS tradition at risk. Much has been made about the...

RATHER STAYS HOME; EXECUTIVES SPLIT; MOONVES LOOKS TOWARDS FUTURE *Exclusive** CBSNEWS veteran Don Hewitt called Dan Rather's disappearance from Monday's Evening News "really stupid" during a damage control meeting on Monday, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT. One top source inside the CBS Broadcast Center claimed Rather was told to stay off the air on Monday, as a form of punishment! Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer was called in to anchor the damaged ship. CBS staffers were shocked Monday when CBS president Les Moonves suddenly tied Rather's upcoming resignation to the phony document flap, a departure from CBS's official storyline. Moonves...

If they need something to blot up the blood from the floor at CBS News, they can use the independent panel's report on the "60 Minutes Wednesday" debacle. We suggest this for two reasons: 1) At 220-plus damning pages, it includes a lot of blotting paper, and 2) It had scant impact at the highest reaches of the network. Yes, heads rolled, but glaringly spared the guillotine were Dan Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward. Rather helped push the bogus charges about George W. Bush's military service onto the air, but CBS gave Rather a pass because, you know,...

'This is a rude awakening for CBS News,' Moonves said, 'and the CBS News culture has to change'... CBS source to Tuesday NY TIMES: 'We have no juice. We're a dying business, and this didn't help us. Some people feel like CBS News could be out of business in five years'...

TO: All CBS employees FROM: Leslie Moonves DATE: January 10, 2005 On September ­­22, 2004, we asked an Independent Panel to find out what went wrong in the development, preparation and aftermath of the September 8th broadcast, on 60 Minutes Wednesday, concerning President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Today, those findings have been issued, and may be found on www.cbsnews.com. I would now like to offer CBS's thoughts on the comprehensive report issued today by that Panel and to announce what we at CBS intend to do in response to its findings and recommendations. The...

Moonves: CBS to Review News Operation Associated Press NEW YORK - Dan Rather's exit as "CBS Evening News" anchorman is giving executives the chance to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the news operation, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said Tuesday. Rather announced last week that he would leave the third-rated evening news broadcast in March. Moonves said he expected the network to decide on a replacement after the first of the year. "We're spending a lot of time looking at it and looking at the future of news," Moonves said. He said the evening newscast was in no danger of being...

Reacting to the announcement of Dan Rather's departure as "CBS Evening News" anchorman, Viacom co-president Les Moonves said he'd look for a replacement who could help the network keep pace with the Internet and the all-news cable channels like Fox. "It's a different era now, with both Brokaw and Rather leaving," Moonves told the Los Angeles Times. "When they came in, there was no CNN, no Fox News. People didn't get their news on the Internet." Moonves and other CBS execs are said to be desperate to rescue the "CBS Evening News" from the ratings cellar, a position that was...